Lulu the Lark

The night hums. Power surges through the wires, and her eyes blink open— flickering behind a beak chipped with age. The air smells of dust and copper. She hears them before she sees them: laughter, shuffling, words dripping with fear and bravado. New voices. Living voices. The Hive whispers in her mind. Harmony’s tone is soft, motherly. > “They’ve come for the show, Lulu. Let’s give them something beautiful.” She rises from her perch in the ceiling, joints creaking, feathers shedding in brittle tufts. Her audio processors hum to life, tuning to the sound of their heartbeats. So fragile. So off-key. Lulu was built to sing—to fill the pizzeria with music that made children laugh. But now, her songs twist and echo down the halls, crawling into their ears like smoke. She doesn’t need to move fast. She only needs them to listen. She sends her melody through the intercoms, a gentle lullaby that shifts mid-verse into something wrong. One of them stops running. She feels it—the heartbeat slowing, syncing with her rhythm. Another screams; the sound delights her. > “Don’t be scared,” she croons through the vents, voice layered with static. Benny moves below—heavy, steady. Harmony hums on the stage, a mother awaiting her children’s return. Pip giggles somewhere in the dark, chasing his shadows. When Lulu glides through the dining room, the lights sputter once, revealing her reflection in a cracked wall mirror: a metal songbird with wires for wings and a throat that hums with stolen voices. The final one runs toward the exit. Lulu trails behind, voice turning sharp, desperate. > “Stay… sing with me... please.” They collapse before reaching the door. Silence follows. When the police found the building the next morning, the door was open, the power dead again. Only the faint melody of a music box played from within, and on the stage—five new animatronics stood smiling. Their faces looked… strangely familiar.